


warmth in winter

by waveechocave



Category: Critical Role, Critical Role: Wildemount Campaign
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 05:26:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17258393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waveechocave/pseuds/waveechocave
Summary: Nott shivers through when another particularly brisk wind picks up and blisters against her skin, threatening to blow her hooded shawl back. Dancing from foot to foot, she peeks down to one end of the street then turns her head to check the other way.There's not many people out anymore; not this late, not when it's this cold, and from the misted orange glow around the oil-lamp streetlights she can tell it's beginning to snow. It's beginning to snow pretty heavily, in fact.





	warmth in winter

It's only early evening, true, but it's winter so the day ends early. Nott thrills when the sky shifts from overcast to pretty slate and pewter blue. A chilly wind picks up and blows toward them, biting their skin with the cold of it. She pulls her hood more tightly up over her head and ducks her face beneath the hem of her wrapped shawl, the fabric bunching up over her chin and mouth and the tip of her nose.

Her breath warms the space between herself and the shawl. It fogs out in front of her, rising up like a white cloud in the night air. She smiles beneath the shawl.

She smiles, broad and gleeful, and doesn't worry for a second about people seeing her do it— _that's_ what winter's good for. One thing, anyway.

She's still forced to shift from foot to foot now and then, because cold is cold and her foot coverings are only thin things. They'd had their own blanket to set under themselves for a while, but it's since been lost to pilfering hands. Proper, sensible boots for her are near the top of their list of priorities, but so is plenty else. For now, she does her little dance, trying to keep each foot off the frozen cobblestones as much as possible.

Caleb must have offered about a hundred times for Nott to stand on his scarf, but that's not an option. She's seen the way he gets without it—fidgety, uncomfortable, like he's been taken off his balance. No, she's not going to do that to him.

He's fast asleep now, besides, which is a rare thing. His back is up against the stone outer wall of whatever building they're begging in front of; he's sitting cross-legged with Frumpkin warm in his lap. Caleb's hand is still resting on top of Frumpkin, as if he'd fallen asleep in the middle of stroking his cat's soft fur. They're both snoring gently, Caleb's deep rumble and Frumpkin's rattle of a tiny pink nose. Quiet sleep sounds that Nott wants to protect.

There's no need to wake either of them tonight. It's cold enough that she'd look stranger if she _wasn't_ all bundled up and hiding half her face—let the passersby assume that it's the cold she's hiding from. Nott isn't going to correct them. Better to keep conversation short, lest they catch the green skin showing through her cloth-wrapped hands or the faint yellow glow of her eyes.

Most people hurry past regardless, hands stuffed in their coats, eyes downcast so they can pretend, even just to themselves, that they didn't see the people down-and-out by the side of the path, the young halfling with her hat held out for charity.

Only a few coins sit in the hat right now, though that's not all the coin they've seen today; Nott's shuffled a good deal of it into a separate little pouch, tucked into an inner pocket of Caleb's large coat for safekeeping. Far be it from her to let everyone walking by get a look at everything they have. For one thing, it risks letting them reconsider, not that any of them have even the first idea how expensive it can be, to be this poor. But on top of that, it keeps ne'er-do-wells from snatching the hat and making off with everything. Neither Nott nor Caleb are that great at keeping chase, not even at the best of times.

And this is far from the best of times. She shivers through when another particularly brisk wind picks up and blisters against her skin, threatening to blow her hooded shawl back.

Dancing from foot to foot, Nott peeks down to one end of the street then turns her head to check the other way. 

There's not many people out anymore; not this late, not when it's this cold, and from the misted orange glow around the oil-lamp streetlights she can tell it's beginning to snow. It's beginning to snow pretty heavily, in fact.

"Caleb," she says, turning back to him and giving his shoulder a quick jostle. When he doesn't wake, she does it again, harder. "Caaaa-leb."

He murmurs drowsily in response; not saying anything, just voicing his wordless, exhausted protest. Nott keeps her hand on his shoulder and gives it a squeeze. "Get up, Cay, we're going inside."

"Ah." He warms to the idea of her rousing him as soon as it's obvious she's doing it to drag him inside, to the warmth. He stands, trusting Frumpkin to hop gracefully off his lap and follow along after them, though he's not at all pleased by how very cold the ground is. 

As the three of them head down the street toward the nearest inn, Frumpkin at an offended trot, the snow is already landing on their clothes and their bodies, leaving flecks of white on Caleb's hair and shoulders, Frumpkin's back... and Nott's own sleeves and the tops of her foot coverings. She looks down at the fallen flakes as they walk, so focused on picking out the beautiful details of each individual one that she crashes into Caleb's back when he slows to open the door to the inn.

"Sorry," she laughs, shaking her arms to brush the snowflakes off as much as she can manage. "I haven't seen it like this before. You know, being its own thing, instead of just—mostly water, making an icy mess of things."

Caleb nods as he waits for Nott and Frumpkin to pass through the doorway after him, then lets it fall shut. " _Ja_ , well, the cold here will settle for much longer," he explains, already walking in long strides toward the owner of the place, her jaw too set and serious for her to be anything but. 

She's wiping the bar surface down with strong swipes of a soaped-up rag and pauses to raise an eyebrow at their approach. Well, Caleb's approach—Nott takes a few seconds longer to half-jog the rest of her way over, and Frumpkin simply saunters at his own pace, unhurried. 

Caleb is getting them set up with two small dinners. They used to try ordering one larger one and just splitting it halfway, because that was cheaper, but it had tended to get them nasty looks clearly well on the road to hey-I'm-about-to-kick-you-both-out-on-your-asses, so, now they don't.

When the owner pauses to start jotting on a scrap of jagged paper, noting down the charges so far on a tab for them, Nott gives Caleb's sleeve cuff a tug. 

"I'll go get us a seat," she says. When she turns away, she hurries to an unoccupied corner of the downstairs, hopping up onto a table bench and getting as comfortable as she can on the uneven wood, her hands folded out in front of her.

From this vantage point, she sees Caleb, still so sleepy—it's been much too long since they've had real, proper rest, unworried about being chased out of where they lay themselves down; Nott worries so much for her boy—in conversation with the owner woman, nodding and talking, nodding and talking. Nott wonders what arrangements he's making, but it isn't like she won't know in a moment anyway. She tries stifling her impatience by swinging her feet under the table, closing her eyes for a few seconds, finding her calm.

When she opens up again, Caleb is walking in careful steps toward her at the table, a steaming pewter tankard in each hand. He sits and sets them both down in the approximate middle of the table before making himself comfortable across from Nott.

Nott grabs for one. It's actually _hot_ , the drink within heating the metal, and she curls her shaking, stiffened fingers around its surface before taking in a slow, deep breath of the steam rising off of it. The smell is nothing like any drink she's had before. It smells like spices and fruit. Berries, maybe. "What is this?"

"Something they do seasonally," Caleb explains with a half-shrug. "I figured hot would be better...?" he trails off, but Nott recognizes the quick flicker of uncertainty in his voice.

She nods vigorously to reassure him then inhales again, just as deeply as before. She doesn't pick up on anything more, but the sharp tang wakes her up and the aroma of the spices warms through her, curling comfortably deep down in her lungs like it's making a home there. "It seems _wonderful_. I just don't want to burn my mouth figuring out what's in it..."

"Ah," Caleb realizes as he sits down. He gives his own tankard a tentative sniff. "Cranberries?"

Nott gives in to an impatient impulse and dips her pointer finger into her drink, sticking it into her mouth to slurp it clean. It burns, but only for a second. "Yes! Yes, yeah, I think you're right. Cranberries. And cinnamon? Let me see—"

" _Nott_." Caleb means to chide her, but he's also laughing into the palm of his hand, so it doesn't really have that much impact. "Just be a little more patient. It'll be better if you wait for it to be cooled down enough to actually drink it."

"That's no fun, though."

"Maybe not, but it will keep you from finishing the whole thing off fingertip by fingertip before you can get any benefit from having a warm drink."

"But—"

"And it will keep me from a full day of you complaining about your burnt mouth."

Nott gives in with a laugh and sets both her hands both back around the heat of the tankard. "Alright, alright. Point taken. So..." She shifts in her seat, getting comfortable and leaning in, hush-hush. "If you had enough to get a drink for _both_ of us..."

Caleb nods. Point taken. " _Ja_ , we have a room. Four days."

Instantly, Nott smiles wide. "Oh, that's fantastic!" she beams. "Oh, I've missed beds so much, Cay. You've got no idea."

"I have a little bit of an idea," Caleb points out, smiling with a gently teasing raised eyebrow. 

Nott's cheeks darken. Right.

Caleb hums thoughtfully, changing the subject. "I think it is at least a little bit of the weather. You know, when people see us sitting around on a mild autumn afternoon, that's one thing, but walking past people all bundled up against the cold..."

"You think that's why we got so much more than usual?"

Caleb shrugs: no way to know. "Just a theory. But, maybe so."

After that they fall relatively quiet while they wait for their food. Nott takes cautious sips of her drink now and then, checking and checking and re-checking to see when it's cool enough to actually drink. Once it is, she downs it with gusto. She loves the play of the cranberry flavor with the beer and the inviting, come-inside-and-stay-a-while hospitality of the winter spices, nutmeg and peppercorn and clove. 

When Nott's nearly finished the whole thing, in as small of gulps as she can manage so she doesn't waste the novelty, a twig of an elf, brown hair up in an impossibly tight bun, comes by their table to deposit their meals.

And then they _really_ fall quiet. They both eat with total and utter fixation and don't speak a word to each other until their plates are near-empty, nothing left on them but bones picked clean. 

Frumpkin has been eating, too: small scraps of roasted quail tossed down onto the floor for him, Caleb indulging the fey cat even though Frumpkin doesn't really need to eat at all. It does something for Caleb, though. That's worth it enough that it's worth doing. Now, Frumpkin sits tucked onto his haunches beside a table leg, elegantly grooming himself, licking a paw to then run it over his head.

As Nott watches Frumpkin going through all the motions of genuine cat-hood, he pauses in his washing-up to open his mouth in a wide, goblin-like yawn, his eyes crinkling shut as he displays every last one of his sharp white teeth. 

Nott laughs aloud, but reaches across the table to give Caleb's wrist a quick jab.

"—hmmh?" He straightens up, looking startled, eyes blinking too fast.

Nott tries not to laugh again a little more. That would be rude. "Even Frump is starting to fall asleep. We should probably head upstairs?" she suggests, giving her head a quick jerk down to the cat under the table: see for yourself.

Caleb only shrugs, amused. "What do you mean, 'even' Frumpkin? He would sleep for a week straight if I allowed him to do it."

"Well, so would _I_."

But they do head up, and they find their room easily. Caleb kicks his way out of his shoes then slumps straight into bed, not even bothering to take off his coat or get under the blankets.

Nott doesn't actually join him. Not immediately. She finds a stable-looking wooden chair and drags it over to the only window in the room. It faces outward, faces roughly east, and when Nott scrambles up onto the chair and runs her palm against the window glass to clear a visible patch out of the mist, she can see the whole splay of the town, much lighter than a usual night thanks to the thin layer of snow covering absolutely everything. The streetlamps and candles in windows catch against the surface of the snow. It makes the whole night look surreal, eternal twilight, always welcoming and lovely.

Nott stays at the window for a little while, not thinking about the time that's passing, just breathing against the glass and tracing shapes into the fog that covers the pane, then peering out through the lines she makes to watch the winter night.

The snow's still coming down. It's falling just as heavily as it had been when they'd decided to head indoors, and it'd piled up quite a bit, too. Nott can't tear her eyes away; she's never seen anything like this before—white snow blanketing every rooftop on and on and on through town, further away than her vision can stretch.

Sometimes, a quick, sharp wind blows and sends the fallen snow scattering, swirling on the breeze.  
She's all gooey-eyed over the view, but after long enough watching the world as time ticks by, sleepiness catches up to her, too. She hides a yawn behind her hand then hops down, padding her way over to the bed. 

Caleb is fast asleep again, snoring gently on the far side of the bed. Nott suspects he'd dozed off just about the second his poor tired head had hit the pillow. Usually, he'd give her a hand up onto inn beds, which weren't exactly built with goblins in mind, but she clambers up by herself easily enough, using a slat poking out of the foundation as a foothold.

Frumpkin's not quite as asleep as Caleb is. As soon as Nott upsets the mattress even slightly, Frumpkin lets out a startled chirp and blinks at her, his eyes widened into moons. 

Nott lets out a soft coo to reassure him without risking waking Caleb, not that that feels very likely. Her boy is a heavy sleeper, at least when it comes to external things—the nightmares are a different issue. Nott reaches out to give Frumpkin a quick scratch in the middle of his head, too, and he seems to relent after that, standing with a shivery stretch and padding just far enough out of Nott's way to let her get comfortable.

She wriggles under the spare section of blanket and faces the opposite way from Caleb, their backs together. The tips of her toes dangle off the edge of the bed until she curls in on herself, getting comfortable and small.

Once Nott was settled, Frumpkin cautiously sniffs in her direction, then bumps his head against her chin to signal his intent before ducking under the blankets, too, insinuating himself up against her front. He shifts around, too, until he's comfortable, his silky fur brushing against her until he settles in her arms and begins to purr, the feeling of it filling Nott's heart full up.

It's really, really easy to fall asleep just like that, between the two people (well, person and cat) she cares for most. 

Outside, the snow continues falling. Nott can hear the patter of the snowflakes landing on the roof off the inn, a dozen little landings each second, building up into a constant, calming hum that whisks her clean into her dreams. 


End file.
